Madame Flirt
a few guineas and I made free to promise him a purse. Within a week
you'll be face to face with your rival and you'll have your revenge."
"To the devil with my revenge. It's the girl I want, you blundering
idiot."
"And it's the girl you shall have, by gad. Can't you see, my good sir,
that when you clap your hands on the fellow you clap your hands on the
girl too?"
"S'life! Do you mean to say she's with him?"
"I'd go to a thousand deaths on that."
"I'll not believe it. The girl's a pretty fool or I shouldn't have made
her sweet on me with so little trouble, but she's not that sort."
"If she isn't, all I can say is that St. Giles and Drury Lane are the
places where innocent and unsuspecting maids are to be found. Ask Sally
Salisbury."
"Damn Sally Salisbury," cried the fine gentleman in a fury. "D'ye think
I don't know gold from dross? I'll take my oath no man had touched the
lips of that coy little wench before mine did."
"By all means keep to that belief, sir. It won't do you no harm. Now if
you'll take my advice you'll let me drive you to Moll King's and you'll
finish the night like a man of mettle and a gentleman."
Dorrimore was in a morose and sullen mood. He wanted bracing up and he
adopted Rofflash's suggestion. The coach rattled to Mrs. King's
notorious tavern in Covent Garden, where thieves and scoundrels, the
very dregs of London, mingled with their betters; and amid a bestial
uproar, with the assistance of claret and Burgundy, to say nothing of
port "laced" with brandy on the one hand, and gin and porter on the
other, all differences in stations were forgotten and gentlemen and
footpads were on a level--dead drunk.
CHAPTER VI
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
A London night in the first quarter of the eighteenth century had very
little rest. Until long past midnight a noisy, lawless, drunken rabble
made the streets hideous. It was quite three o'clock, when as
physiologists tell us the vital forces are at their lowest, before it
could be said that the city was asleep. And that sleep did not last
long. Soon the creaking of market cart and waggon wheels, the shouts of
drovers and waggoners, tramping horses, bellowing cattle and bleating
sheep would dispel the stillness and proclaim the beginning of another
day.
Business in the approaches to the markets was in full swing before four
o'clock. Carters and waggoners were thirsty and hungry souls and the
eating houses and saloop stalls were thronged. The Old Bailey, from its
nearness to Smithfield was crowded, and the buxom proprietress of
Fenton's coffee house was hard put to it to serve her clamorous
customers and to see that she wasn't cheated or robbed.
Mrs. Fenton had improved in appearance as well as in circumstances since
she had come from Bedfordbury to the Old Bailey. She was a good-looking
woman of the fleshly type, with a bosom such as Rowlandson loved to
depict. She was high coloured, her eyes were deep blue, full and without
a trace of softness. Her lips were red and well shaped, her teeth white
and even. She was on the shady side of forty, but looked ten years
younger. Her customers admired her and loved to exchange a little coarse
badinage in which the good woman more than held her own.
There was a Mr. Fenton somewhere in the world, but his wife was quite
indifferent to his existence. He might be in the West Indian plantations
or the hulks for what she cared. She had always gone her own way and
meant to do so to the end of her days.
Apparently she was not in the best of tempers this morning. A drover who
attempted to jest with her was unmercifully snubbed, and so also was a
master butcher from Marylebone, who as a rule was received with favour.
But the lady was not in an ill temper with everybody--certainly not with
the stolid farmer-like man who was plodding his way through a rumpsteak
washed down by small beer.
The coffee shop was divided into boxes and the farmer-like man was
seated in one near the door which opened into the kitchen. Mrs. Fenton
had constantly to pass in and out and his seat was conveniently placed
so as to permit her to bestow a smile upon him as she went by or to
exchange a hurried word.
"The mistress is a bit sweet in that quarter, eh?" whispered a customer
with a jerk of the head and a wink to Hannah the waitress, whom Mrs.
Fenton had brought with her from Bedfordbury.
"I should just think she was," returned the girl contemptuously. "It
makes one sick. She ought to be a done with sweetheartin'."
"A woman's never too old for that, my girl, as you'll find when you're
her age. She might do worse. Dobson's got a tidy little purse put by.
There aren't many in the market as does better than him. He's brought up
twenty head o' cattle from his farm at Romford an' he'll sell 'em all
afore night--money down on the nail, mind ye. That'll buy Mistress
Fenton a few fallals if she's a mind for 'em."
"An' if she's fool enough. Why, he isn't much more than half her years
and she with a grown up daughter too."
"Aye. May be the gal 'ud be more a match for Dobson than her mother."
"Don't you let my mistress hear you say that. Why she's that jealous of
Lavinia she could bite the girl's head off. My! Well I never!"
Hannah started visibly and fixed her eyes on the entrance.
"What's the matter, wench?" growled the man.
"I don't believe in ghosts," returned the girl, paling a little and her
hands trembling in a fashion which rather belied her words, "or I'd say
as I'd just seen Miss Lavinia's sperrit look in at the door. If it isn't
her ghost it's her double."
"Why don't you run outside and settle your mind?"
"'Cause it's impossible it could be her. The girl's at boarding school."
"What's that got to do with it? You go and see."
Hannah hesitated, but at last plucked up her courage and went to the
door. She saw close to the wall some few yards away a somewhat
draggle-tail figure in cloak and hood. Within the hood was Lavinia's
face, though one would hardly recognise it as hers, so white, so drawn,
were the cheeks.
"Saints alive, surely it isn't you, Miss Lavvy?" cried Hannah, clasping
her hands as she ran to the fugitive.
"Indeed it is, worse luck. I'm in sad straits, Hannah. I wouldn't have
come here--I know what mother is--but I couldn't think what to do."
"But good lord--the school--mercy on us child, they haven't turned you
out, have they?"
"No, but they will if I go back. I dursn't do that. I couldn't get in.
I've been robbed of the key. It was inside my reticule that a rogue
snatched from my wrist on London Bridge."
"London Bridge! Gracious! What mischief took 'ee there and at this time
o' the mornin'?"
"I don't know," sighed the girl, half wearily, half pettishly. "I can't
tell you. Don't bother me any more. I'm tired to death. Take me inside
Hannah, or I'll drop. I suppose mother'll be in a fury when she sees me,
but it can't be helped. I don't think I care. It's nothing to do with
her."
Hannah forebore pestering the girl with more questions and led her to
the open door. The waitress had been with Mrs. Fenton in the squalid
days of six months before at the Bedfordbury coffee shop and she well
knew how Lavinia was constantly getting into a scrape, not from
viciousness, but from pure recklessness and love of excitement. Her
mother's treatment of her "to cure her of her ways," as the lady put it,
was simply brutal.
Hannah was not a little afraid of what would happen when Mrs. Fenton set
eyes on her wilful daughter. At the same time, Lavinia was not the same
girl who at Bedfordbury used to run wild, half clad and half starved,
and yet never looked like a beggar, so pretty and so attractive was she.
Six months had developed her into a woman and the training of Miss
Pinwell, the pink of gentility, had given her the modish airs of a lady
of quality. True, her appearance just now had little of this "quality,"
her walk being in fact somewhat limping and one-sided. But there was
good reason for this defect. She had lost one of her high-heeled shoes,
that with which she had battered the coach window.
In spite of her protest of not caring, Lavinia's heart went pit-a-pat
when she entered the hot, frowsy, greasy air of the coffee house.
Customers were clamouring to be served and there was no Hannah to wait
upon them. Mrs. Fenton, her eyes flashing fire, was bustling up and down
between the rows of boxes and denouncing the truant waitress in vigorous
Billingsgate.
Mrs. Fenton had her back turned to the door when Hannah entered with
Lavinia and the two were half way down the gangway before the lady
noticed them. At the sight of her daughter she dropped the dish of eggs
and bacon she was about to deposit in front of a customer and stared
aghast.
Every eye was turned upon Lavinia who, shaking herself free from
Hannah's friendly support, hastened towards her astonished mother,
anxious to avoid a scene under which in her shattered nerves she might
break down.
"Devil fetch me," Mrs. Fenton ejaculated before she had recovered from
the shock. "Why, you hussy----"
Lavinia did not wait to hear more. She brushed past her mother and then
her strength failing her for a moment, she clutched the back of the last
box to steady herself.
This box was that in which Dobson, the young cattle dealer was seated.
Dobson was human. He fell instantly under the spell of those limpid,
imploring eyes, the tremulous lips, and he rose and proffered his seat.
The act of courtesy was unfortunate. It accentuated Mrs. Fenton's rage.
Her heart was torn by jealousy. That Lavinia had shaken her head and
refused the seat made not the slightest difference. The girl had become
surpassingly handsome. Despite her fury Mrs. Fenton had eyes for this.
Her own daughter had attracted the notice of _her_ man! The offence was
unpardonable.
Lavinia knew nothing about this. All she wanted was to escape
observation and she darted into the kitchen, Betty the cook receiving
her with open mouth.
A narrow, ricketty staircase in a corner of the kitchen shut in by a
door which a stranger would take for that of a cupboard led to the upper
part of the house. Lavinia guessed as much. She darted to this door,
flung it open and ran up the creaking stairs just as her mother, shaking
with passion, entered and caught sight of her flying skirt.
"Good laux, mistress," Betty was beginning, but she could get no
further. Mrs. Fenton jumped down her throat.
"Hold your silly tongue. Don't talk to me. I--the smelling salts! Quick,
you slut, or I'll faint," screamed the lady.
No one could look less like fainting than did Mrs. Fenton, and so Betty
thought, but she kept her thoughts to herself and fetched the restorer
at which her mistress vigorously sniffed, after sinking, seemingly
prostrate, into a chair. Then she fell to fanning her hot face with her
apron, now and again relieving her feelings with language quite
appropriate to the neighbourhood of the Old Bailey.
Meanwhile Hannah wisely kept aloof and only went to the kitchen when
necessary to execute her customers' orders. Directly the fainting lady
inside saw the waitress she revived.
"What's this about Lavinia? Tell me. Everything mind," she cried.
"What I don't know I can't tell, mistress. Ask her yourself," returned
Hannah.
"Don't try to bamboozle me. You _do_ know."
"I say I don't. I found her outside more dead than alive, and I brought
her in. I wasn't going to let her be and all the scum of Newgate about."
"Oh, that was it. And pray how did you come to learn she was outside?"
"Because she'd looked in at the door a minute afore and was afeared to
come in 'cause of you, mistress. Give me that dish o' bacon, Betty. The
man who saw his breakfast tumbling on the floor is in a sad pother."